social network

social network

(communications)

Any website designed to allow multiple
users to publish content themselves. The information may be
on any subject and may be for consumption by (potential)
friends, mates, employers, employees, etc. The sites
typically allow users to create a "profile" describing
themselves and to exchange public or private messages and list
other users or groups they are connected to in some way.
There may be editorial content or the site may be entirely
user-driven. Content may include text, images
(e.g. http://flickr.com/), video
(e.g. http://youtube.com/) or any other media.

Social networks on the the web are a natural extension of
mailing lists and buletin boards. They are related to
wikis like http://wikipedia.org/ but typically do not
allow users to modify content once it has been submitted,
though usually you can publish comments on others'
submissions.

Different sites have different emphasis. For example,
http://friendsreunited.co.uk/ (one of the earliest such
sites) focusses on listing former acquaintances;
http://myspace.com/ is music-oriented;
http://linkedin.com/ aims to connect business partners;
http://del.icio.us/, http://stumbleupon.com/ and
http://digg.com/ are for exchanging links to favouirite
web sites. There are many more.

Sometimes the social aspects are a side-effect of bringing
together people with shared interests,
e.g. http://slashdot.org/ (IT), other times they become
more important than the original purpose,
e.g. http://worldofwarcraft.com/ (fantasy gaming).

social network

An association of people drawn together by family, work or hobby. The term was first coined by professor J. A. Barnes in the 1950s, who defined the size of a social network as a group of about 100 to 150 people.

On the Web, social sites such as Facebook and Twitter have expanded the concept to include a company's customers, a celebrity's fans and a politician's constituents (see social networking site).

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